
ore Fl^-' 



A DISCOURSE 



O N 



ST. PAUL'S EPISTLE TO PHILEMON; 



EXHIBITING THE DUTY OF CITIZENS OP THE NORTHERN STATES 



IN REGARD TO THE 



INSTITUTION OF SLAVERY; 



DELIVERED IN CHRIST CHURCH, HARTFORD: 



DEC. 2 2, 1850; 






BY N. S.* WHEATON, D. D. 



HARTFORD: 

PRESS OF CASE, TIFFANY AND COMPANY 
1851. 



/ 



A DISCOURSE 



tL!L 

ST. PAUL'S EPISTLE TO PHILEMON; 4 *** 



EXHIBITING THE DUTY OF CITIZENS OF THE NORTHERN STATES 



IN REGARD TO THE 



INSTITUTION OF SLAVERY; 



DELIVERED IN CHRIST CHURCH, HARTFORD: 



DEC. 2 2, 1 S 5 ; 



%1 ' 

BY N. S. WHEATON, D. D. 

6 ° 




^HARTFORD: 
PRESS OF CASE, TIFFANY AND COMPANY 
1851. 



TO THE REV. N. S. WHEATON, D. D. 

Reverend and Dear Sir : 

We, who were among the gratified listeners to the very able 
and timely discourse, delivered by you at Christ Church on 
Sunday evening last, believing in the inestimable value of the 
Union, and keenly alive to the dangers which now threaten it, 
do most earnestly request that you will furnish us with a copy 
of the discourse for publication. 

We are confident that such a plain and powerful appeal to 
the Christian community, and such masterly arguments in favor 
of sustaining the law, must go far towards enlightening the 
understanding of superficial thinkers, as well as confirming the 
views and strengthening the actions of all real lovers of the 
Union ; and, in our judgment, ought, at this crisis, to be given 
the largest publicity. 

Such appeals from the Northern pulpit cannot but exert a 
happy influence in subduing and meliorating the unfraternal 
feelings wjiich pervade a portion of the Southern community, 
as well as cause the prevalence of a more Christian Spirit and 
thoughtful action on the part of some at the North. 

There are among us, always, numbers of heedless persons, 
who will join a popular cry, or follow the delusive lead of a 
disorganizer ; who would pursue the better course, if sound 
argument and fair reasoning were placed within their reach. 
For the enlightenment of such, as well as for the benefit of all, 
we trust that you will allow your admirable discourse to be 
given to the public. 

PHILLIP RIPLEY, 
C. H. NORTHAM, 
H. HUNTINGTON, 
CYPRIAN NICHOLS, 
ZEPHANIAH PRESTON. 

Hartford, Dec. 24, 1850. 



Gentlemen : 

I place the following discourse at your disposal, principally 
in the hope that it may tend, in some degree, to strengthen the 
hands of those amongst us who prefer law and order to faction 
and disunion ; and to convey to any of our brethren at the South 
into whose hands it may fall, who are laboring in the same good 
cause, a pledge of our hearty concurrence, and of our determi- 
nation to abide strictly by the constitution and laws of our coun- 
try. I do this the more readily, as 1 see at the head of the sig- 
natures to your letter the name of the respected Mayor of this 
city, who presided at the first union meeting (Oct. 12, 1850,) 
held in the United States after the passage of the compromise 
measures of Congress. The principles here advocated are the 
same, I believe, as those embodied in the Resolutions of that 
meeting ; at all events, they are the principles which I have 
held and maintained without any misgivings ever since I thought 
I understood the subject. 

As you have been pleased to express the opinion that the pub- 
lication may be of some service at the present time, I am willing 
to overlook the circumstance that the discourse is but the sequel 
to another previously delivered at the same place, on the duty 
of "submission to every ordinance of man ;" and consequently, 
not embracing the whole subject. That it was prepared in the 
usual course of parochial duty, and with no view to publication, 
will not be pleaded in palliation of any doctrines or opinions 
contained in it. For these I have no apology to offer, for none 
I conceive are needed. 

With great regard, 
I am gentlemen, 
Your ob't servant, 

N. S. WHEATON. 
Hon. Phillip Ripley, and others. 

Hartford, Dec. 27, 1850. 



DISCOURSE. 



ST. PAUL'S EPISTLE TO PHILEMON. 

Among the books of the New Testament, there 
is a short letter, written entirely on a private sub- 
ject, and having no reference to the proof or eluci- 
dation of any doctrinal truth ; which yet has held 
its place in the Sacred Canon unquestioned from 
any quarter, and been always understood as de- 
signed by the Holy Ghost for the general edifica- 
tion of the Church. From the nature of the sub- 
ject of which it treats, it attracts little attention 
from the general reader. Yet, since it exhibits an 
example how a christian Apostle behaved under 
certain peculiar circumstances, which circumstances 
have become our own in every essential particular, 
we naturally recur to it for instruction. There is 
this advantage in an example over a precept : the 
example, or instance, interprets the precept, and 
solves whatever there may be doubtful in it, if there 
be reasonable ground for doubt. When we see the 
rule actually applied in a particular case ; when we 



6 

see a man like St. Paul, acting under the inspiration 
of the Holy Ghost, doing in his own person precise- 
ly that which is in accordance with his public 
teaching; we have a practical illustration of his 
meaning ; and we know and feel that we are doing 
right when, under parallel circumstances, we act as 
he did. One might almost suppose that the provi- 
dence of God had anticipated the very crisis in 
which this country is now placed, and had caused 
this comparatively unheeded letter to be written as 
a guide to Christian consciences now. 

Philemon was a citizen of Colosse in Asia Minor, 
and evidently a man of wealth and consideration 
in his own city. — But that, of which it principally 
concerns us now to speak, is the esteem in which 
he was held by such a man as St. Paul. He had 
been converted by that Apostle to the Christian 
faith ; he is commended for his " love and faith to- 
wards the Lord Jesus, and towards all saints" ; 
St. Paul calls him " our dearly beloved, and fellow- 
labourer," whom he " always mentioned in his 
prayers," and in whose " love he had great joy and 
consolation," because, says he, " the bowels of the 
saints are refreshed by thee, brother." We may 
look in vain through all the Epistles for a similar 
instance of tender friendship and personal esteem 
for a man in the private walks of life. Many such 
are indeed mentioned with distinguished honour; 



but no one of them has been handed down to us so 
richly embalmed — so consecrated by the dear affec- 
tion of " the chiefest of the Apostles," as Philemon 
of Colosse. 

Philemon was a slave-holder. 

One of his slaves, Onesimus, escaped from his 
bonds, and found his way to Rome, where St. 
Paul then was, an honourable prisoner within lim- 
its, but allowed to exercise the ministry. There, 
Onesimus hears the Apostle preach, and is convert- 
ed to the faith of Christ. He seeks an interview 
with the Apostle, whom he had probably known at 
the house of his master in former days ; confesses 
to him that he is a fugitive, and solicits his 

counsel. 

A case is now presented, in which all the circum- 
stances concur to bring to a decision, and before a 
competent tribunal, the rights and duties of all con- 
cerned. This decision Ave have in the following 
passage, in the letter of St. Paul to Philemon : — 

" I beseech thee for my son Onesimus, whom I 
have begotten in my bonds ; which in time past 
was to thee unprofitable, but now profitable to thee 
and to me : whom I have sent again : Thou there- 
fore receive him, that is mine own bowels : Whom 
I would have retained with me that, in thy stead, 
he miffht have ministered unto me in the bonds of 



8 

the gospel. But without thij mind would I do 
nothing." 

The essential facts brought to our notice in this 
epistle, so far as they concern our present purpose, 
are these : 

Oue of the best and most exemplary of Christian 
men, and the bosom friend of an Apostle, is a slave- 
holder : 

The slave escapes from his master, and finds his 
way to a far distant city, where he is safe from all 
pursuit : 

He is there met by an Apostle, and by him con- 
verted to Christianity — shown the wrong he has 
done his master, and sent back to him, with a let- 
ter of commendation and friendly entreaty, which 
has ever been considered a master-piece in its kind. 

On the transactions thus briefly narrated, we 
mav remark ; that nowhere in the epistle is there 
a word of censure, expressed or implied, of Phile- 
mon, for being the owner of slaves. There is no 
appeal to his conscience as a Christian ; none what- 
ever to any higher law than the law of the country 
which gave him a property in Onesimus. That 
right remained unimpaired, even after Onesimus 
became a Christian; and the Apostle, so far from 
impugning it, recognizes it in all its force* and acts 
accordingly. 

Another reflection, so obvious indeed as scarcely 



to demand a particular notice, is this ; that had St. 
Paul perceived any thing morally wrong in the re- 
lation of master and slave, he could not, and would 
not, have done what he did — remit to a state of 
domestic servitude one who, already escaped from 
it, had acquired a new title to freedom by his adop- 
tion into the Christian family, if his former bonds 
were unjust. 

Another circumstance to be remembered is, that 
Onesimus himself was satisfied with the whole pro- 
cedure ; since he acquiesced in it, and, by the 
direction of the Apostle, returned to his master. 
And, what makes the case a still stronger one, the 
slave was of the same complexion, and probably 
of the same race, with his owner ; and, what is 
still more, all the parties were Christians. 

On a candid review of all these circumstances, I 
know not how an unprejudiced mind can evade 
the conclusion, that the holding of men to involun- 
tary service is not, under all circumstances, incon- 
sistent with Christianity ; or, in other words, that 
slavery has not been prohibited by the word of God. 

Let us now see whether the Apostle's teaching 
in reference to the same subject was in accordance 
with his practice in the case of Onesimus. 

Allow me to make one preliminary remark, 
which must be borne in mind in order to compre- 
hend the force of the passages I am about to ad- 



10 

duce from the New Testament. Wherever the 
word servant is used by the Apostles in speaking 
of, or to, a particular class of persons, the persons 
indicated are slaves, in the common meaning of the 
term ; and were as much the property of their 
masters, as are the descendants of the African in 
any of the southern states. This will not be ques- 
tioned by any one conversant with ancient history; 
nor that the power of the Roman slave holder over 
his bondsman was far more absolute than any thing 
known in this land. Keeping this fact in view, 
then, that the servants so often mentioned by the 
Apostles were slaves ; let us see what sort of pre- 
cepts they delivered to this class of persons, in 
their discourses on the relative duties of mankind. 
If there should be any thing here which grates on 
the ear of modern philanthropists, the blame must 
be laid on those, whom Christ sent forth into the 
world to instruct men in the duties which pertain 
to their several stations. They alone are respon- 
sible for such precepts as the following. — 

St. Paul to the Ephesians. — " Servants, be obe- 
dient to them that are your masters according to 
the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of 

heart, as unto Christ Knowing that 

whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same 
shall he receive of the Lord, whether lie he bond or 
freer 



11 

St. Paul to the Colossians. — " Servants, obey in 
all things your masters according to the flesh ; not 
with eye-service, as men-pleasers ; but in single- 
ness of heart, fearing God." 

St. Paul to Titus, a Christian Pastor and Bish- 
op. — " Exhort servants to be obedient to their own 
masters, and to please them well in all things." 

St. Peter, in his General Epistle. — " Servants, 
be subject to your masters with all fear ; not only 
to the good and gentle, but also to the froward." 

St. Paul, again, in his Epistle to Timothy, anoth- 
er Pastor and Bishop. — " Let as many servants as 
are under the yoke, count their own masters worthy 
of all honour ; that the name of God and his doc- 
trine be not blasphemed. And they that have be- 
lieving masters, let them not despise them because 
they are brethren ; but rather do them service. 
. . . . These things teach and exhort. If 
any man teach otherwise, and consent not to whole- 
some words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, 
and to the doctrine which is according to godliness ; 
he is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about ques- 
tions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, 
railings, evil surmisings, perverse disputings of men 

of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth 

From such, withdraw thyself." 

I will not affirm that St. Paul had in his view a 
notorious class of persons in New England, in the 



12 

middle of the nineteenth century, when he wrote 
this ; but I may say that, had he lived to see and 
hear what we have been compelled to see and 
hear, his delineations of character could not have 
been more graphic and life-like. 

What now is the import of all these emphatic 
and reiterated injunctions, imposed on such as 
were in bonds and under the yoke ? How do 
they comport with the zeal of our pseudo-philan- 
thropists to break, at every hazard, the bond 
which unites the servant to his master ? Is not 
the relation here recognized in its fullest extent, 
and made the ground work of a particular class of 
duties ? Is not obedience in the slave, according 
to the apostolic standard, made a duty as sacred as 
any other duty, social or moral ? And are not 
they who teach otherwise, — who would defraud the 
master by enticing away the bondsman, or detain- 
ing him, — characterized by condemnatory epithets 
which it would be thought scarcely courteous 
to utter now ; epithets, piled one on another 
with rhetorical profusion, as if the culpability of 
their conduct could not be made to stand out in 
too strong relief? Are they, indeed, to be identi- 
fied with the men-steakrs, of whom the Apostle 
speaks elsewhere ? 

We have now, I think, arrived at the true 
reasons on which a Christian man, who honestly 



13 

desires to do his duty, is expected as a matter of 
conscience to acquiesce in the law, which demands 
that the fugitive from service shall, on legal requi- 
sition, be returned. That he should he so re- 
turned, I need not say, is the law of the land, and 
has been ever since the adoption of the Constitu- 
tion under which we live. That it is not contrary 
to the law of God is too evident to need further 
proof. If, then, these facts be incontrovertable, 
the most scrupulous conscience need not be dis- 
turbed by the demand of a cheerful acquiescence 
in the law which reclaims the fugitive slave ; — 
a law, which demands no more than St. Paul 
thought it his duty to do in a parallel case. When 
I call the cases parallel, I must, however, make an 
exception in regard to a single point; but that 
exception places our duty, if possible, in a still 
clearer light. When he restored the fugitive, 
Onesimus, he acted, so far as we are informed, 
under no constraint of civil law ; the contrary is 
implied by the expression — " whom I would have 
retained with me" : he was not obliged to do it, as 
is the case with us, by any positive enactment 
of the powers that were. He only obeyed what 
he understood to be the law of Christ, and the law 
of justice towards a Christian brother. Let those 
who, in their erratic cruise on the ocean of human- 
ity, think they have made new and important dis- 



14 

coveries, impeach him if they please of a derelic- 
tion of high moral duties. The task shall not 
be mine. It is enough for me that, in obeying 
a particular law under which I live, I am not only 
subjecting myself to a " power ordained of God ;" 
but doing precisely what I have an example of in 
the action of the great Apostle to the Gentiles, 
while under no such constraint as that imposed on 
me as a citizen of these United States. 

Let me now briefly retrace the course of argu- 
ment by which we have arrived at this conclusion ; 
for it is one in regard to which it is desirable at this 
particular time that every one should be satisfied. 
The consideration which met us in the outset* 
was, the universal requirement of Christ's law, to 
submit ourselves without reserve to the law under 
which we live, " for wrath's sake, for conscience' 
sake, and for the Lord's sake." 

The next consideration was that, in thus submit- 
ting ourselves, in this particular instance of restor- 
ing a fugitive ; — not in baffling the officers of the 

SO 7 

law, and aiding in the escape of the slave ; but in 
honestly sending him back to his legal owner; we 
just do what no less a man than St. Paul, a chosen 
messenger of the Lord, and the interpreter of the 
mind of Christ, did in a similar case ; only that he 



Referring to a former discourse. 



15 

was not constrained as we are by any positive law 

of man. 

Then, referring to the teaching of this Apostle 
and his coadjutors, we find them recognizing with- 
out reserve, qualification or censure, the relation of 
master and slave ; and giving a variety of instruc- 
tions to the latter 'in regard to the duties of his 
peculiar situation. 

On all these accounts, and bearing in mind the 
conduct of St. Paul in the case of Onesimus, so 
perfectly in conformity with his precepts and those 
of his fellow Apostles ; we are obliged to conclude 
that when, under similar circumstances, we act as 
he did, and allow ourselves to be governed by the 
same law of duty which ruled him, we may be 
sure that Ave are acting right. In this conclusion I 
am content to rest, till I have the light of a new 
revelation to show me what I ought to do. 

If any objection be urged on the score of hu- 
manity, and the supposed hardship of a return to 
a state of bondage ; if our sympathies are engaged 
in behalf of any who, having escaped from their 
bonds, have been long dwelling amongst us; how 
very simple and obvious is the remedy! We 
have, in that case, only to purchase the liberty 
of the slave, and leave him in the quiet enjoyment 
of his home. A few thousand dollars would 
redeem all who are likely ever to be reclaimed in 



16 

New England ; and probably not a master at the 
south would hesitate to accept the arrangement. 
But let the law first have its course, without hin- 
drance or obstruction from any quarter ; and when 
the fugitive shall have been found and identified, 
he will soon learn whether the real friends of his 
race are not to be found among the strenuous 
supporters of law. To this course I dp not see 
what possible objection can be urged by the most 
scrupulous mind, however unsatisfactory it may be 
to the factious and turbulent.* 

In what I have said thus far, I have simply 
endeavoured to present to you the law of Christi- 
anity in regard to slavery, as it appears to my own 
mind. I have spoken to you as Christians, solicit- 
ous to know your duty, or what may be your 
duty, at a very delicate and important crisis ; and 
trust that every ground of reasonable doubt has 
been removed. 

But there are other considerations, besides the 
mere obligations of law, which I wish to submit 
before I leave the subject ; and to these I now 
ask vour attention. 



* The above remark? are designed to apply principally to the case of 
such fugitives as have been long resident at the north, and have families 
here. These, the owners would probably be willing to surrender on 
reasonable terms. An indiscriminate offer to redeem all fugitives would 
not only be a misplaced generosity, but would actually hold out an induce- 
ment to desertion. 



17 

If any amongst us have been taught to think 
hardly of our brethren at the south for retaining 
the institution of slavery, it is proper to remind 
such that it was not of their procuring in the first 
instance. I cannot but remember that it was 
forced upon them in their then condition of colo- 
nies, by the mother country, in the days of her 
moral darkness, when neither she nor any one else 
supposed there was any thing wrong or even 
questionable in the slave trade. It does not 
• become us to forget, that the capital and the navi- 
gation of New England — " the ships of Chittim," 
the navigating people — were largely if not princi- 
pally engaged in transporting slaves from the bar- 
racoons of western Africa to the shores of Virginia 
and the Carolinas ; against the earnest protest, 
too, of both colonies. And when I remember all 
this, and consider how, in consequence, this 
domestic servitude has become so incorporated 
with the whole texture of southern institutions 
and society ; how they have so grown up together 
and are so intermingled, that by no possibility can 
slavery be suddenly torn out, without the most 
deplorable consequences both to the master and 
the servant ; I think I see reason enough for a very 
kindly forbearance on our part ; I recognize even 
a stern demand of justice, irrespective of all 
written laws, that we religiously abstain from 



18 

every thing like contumely and reproach, as well 
as from an officious intermeddling with what is 
now altogether their concern, and none of ours. 
And I go still further, and say, in view of the part 
taken by the north in former times, in stocking the 
sugar and cotton-fields of the south with their 
sable cultivators, that whoever are entitled to cast 
the first stone, we are not that people. It seems 
indeed incredible that any amongst us should feel 
themselves at liberty to indulge in the language of 
vituperation, so long as we insist on praising our ■ 
puritanical forefathers for every virtue under heav- 
en, and continue to build the tombs of the proph- 
ets and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, 
through whose active agency the slave-trade was 
carried on, and all the consequences incurred of 
which many are now disposed to complain. 

Slavery having thus been imposed on our breth- 
ren at the south, not unwillingly we are at liberty 
to suppose so far as a portion of them were con- 
cerned, and become an integral part of their 
social existence ; they cannot suddenly abolish 
it if they would. But whether they shall or shall 
not abolish it at all, is no business of ours. It was 
rightly said on a late occasion by one of our most 
eloquent orators, while commenting on a remark 
of the foremost of our statesmen, that we had less 
to do with the slavery of the southern states than 



19 

with that of Cuba. The latter we may discuss as 
we please, and publish what we please in regard 
to it ; while the former is guarded against our 
approach by the very spirit and intent of our polit- 
ical compact. We cannot assail it without giving 
just ground of offence. Many seem to forget this; 
and talk as if we were under a moral obliga- 
tion, — some undiscovered, unintelligible higher 
law, to wipe out this foul blot, as they are pleased 
to call it, from our national character. Why, 
since the day when our navigators discharged 
their living cargoes at the wharves of the southern 
states, it has never for one instant been under our 
controul, in any manner or shape whatever. And 
whether it be a good or a bad institution, a bles- 
sing or a curse to the land where it prevails, is not 
our concern. It can no more become a practical 
question with the people of New England, than 
is the question of serfdom in Russia or Poland. 
It is less so, for the reason I have just alluded to ; 
and a good and sufficient reason it is why we 
should let it alone. 

When the people of the southern colonies as 
they then were, or lately had been, were about to 
unite with those at the north, in a mutual confede- 
ration for commercial and other purposes, they 
were as independent of us as we were of them. 
They had their local laws and institutions as 



20 

we had ; and they had a right to require, as 
they did, that one of the conditions of the com- 
pact should be, that they should continue to man- 
age their domestic affairs in their own way with- 
out any interference from us, just as we were 
to manage ours without any interference from 
them. It was one of the mutual stipulations 
that persons held to service in one state, escaping 
into another, should on requisition he given up. 
That Avas a part of the compact, and a very 
important one to those states which were encum- 
bered with a numerous population of this charac- 
ter ; and they had a right to say that, unless that 
condition were made a part of the compact, the 
negociation should not go on. They did not ask 
the north to sanction slavery, nor to pronounce 
any opinion in regard to it : — no such thing : all 
that they demanded was, that slavery should be 
recognized as a fact, an existence, a thing that 
was, subject to no controul but their own ; and 
moreover, that fugitives from labour should be 
restored — a thing of no sort of consequence to 
us, but of the greatest possible consequence to 
them. To these conditions we assented, and 
very properly : the federation could not have 
been consummated on any other terms. And 
now, if Ave deliberately violate those conditions; 
or, through a culpable negligence, permit them to 



21 

be violated ; if we allow a noisy faction, whatever 
their motives may be, so far to prevail as to 
set the laws at defiance, and in any way to render 
the recovery of a fugitive impossible, whether 
by connivance, or sham-legal proceedings, or by 
open resistance, or by exhortations to resistance ; 
then, what follows ? Why, the compact is broken 
by us : we refuse to fulfill its stipulations ; and the 
aggrieved states may if they choose, at any mo- 
ment, declare the confederacy dissolved. When 
their rights in this matter, as agreed upon and 
confirmed in the Constitution, the great instru- 
ment of union, shall be denied them, or cannot 
any longer be enforced ; the bond is broken, and 
they are cast loose from all obligation to observe 
it. The act of separation in that case is ours, not 
theirs ; the crime of disunion lies at our door, and 
not with them. All this seems plain enough. 

Let me present the case in another point of view. 
Wherever the two races subsist together in the 
same community, in any thing like equal numbers, 
experience has shown it to be best that the rela- 
tion of master and bondsman should prevail. 
Whatever may be the evils, moral and social, grow- 
ing out of such a relation ; — and I shall neither 
deny nor extenuate them ; it is certain that much 
more aggravated ones, though of a different de- 
scription, would follow the sundering of the tie ; 



22 

evils, which would fall more heavily on the eman- 
cipated slave than on his former master. I speak 
now of the actual relative position of the two races 
in the southern states ; and on the supposition that 
they are to continue to inhabit the same land. 
But it would be foreign to my purpose to pursue 
this idea further. 

For my own part, after the maturest considera- 
tion I could give to the very difficult problem, how 
slavery in the United States is to be ultimately dis- 
posed of; I am unable to separate the idea of col- 
onization from emancipation on an extended scale. 
Dwell together as equals the two races never can, 
at least in this country. Wherever the sons of 
Ham and the sons of Japheth have been brought 
into juxtaposition, the original law of servitude in 
some of its forms has universally prevailed : "a ser- 
vant of servants shall he be unto his brethren." I do 
not so much understand this in the light of a com- 
mand that it should be so, as of a prophecy that it 
would be so. So it ever has been ; so it is at the 
present moment, even in the place where I now 
stand ; for you know there is and can be no equality 
here. All attempts hitherto to force the two races 
into an equal social position have only served to ex- 
hibit the amiable folly of their authors. The re- 
pugnance remains, unconquered and unconquerable; 
and the inferior race must, by a law which we can- 



23 

not controul, remain under some kind of subordi- 
nation to the higher intellect of the Anglo Saxon, 
till it shall please God to lift up the curse, pro- 
nounced four thousand and five hundred years ago. 
How this will be brought to pass is not yet alto- 
gether manifest ; but the dawnings of God's provi- 
dence in regard to the African are not perhaps 
undistinguishable at the present moment. They 
may, I think, be discerned, in the opening of a 
door for the return and re-gathering of this long 
servile race in the land where their brethren are 
now clustered. As Joseph's brethren, when they 
sold him into Egypt, meant it for evil, and God 
meant it for good ; so may blessings incalculable 
yet spring from an act, evil in itself — the carrying 
away of the African, to sojourn for a time in a state 
of bondage. That time has not been lost to him. 
Compare the moral condition of the southern slave 
with that of his almost brute brother in the forests 
of Western Africa ; worshipping the Devil, and 
propitiating his wrath with human sacrifices and 
rites obscene ; administering the poison-water; 
warring eternally, and wallowing without shame or 
restraint in the grossest sensuality ; and say if his 
bondage, hard as bondage may seem to us, has not 
been to him a blessing ? Beyond all doubt, he has 
been unspeakably elevated in the scale of being, 
humble as his position may still be. He has gained 



24 

the knowledge which would never have dawned 
on his dark mind in his native land. He has been 
made to know the God who made him, and the 
Saviour who bought him, and all those precious 
truths of the gospel which, more than any others, 
tend to improve and ennoble man's nature : his 
bondage then has not been to him altogether a 
curse. Very far from it. And now that he has 
been in some degree prepared for usefulness in the 
hands of another master, shall we not say to him, 
and to all his brethren dwelling in the land of their 
captivity, — " as fast as the way is prepared and the 
door is opened, return to your yet benighted breth- 
ren in the country of your forefathers, and impart 
to them the blessings you have received: bear to 
them the tidings of the everlasting gospel ; acquaint 
them with the arts of civilization you have learned ; 
open the wilderness to cultivation; let churches 
arise, and let schools be established ; let the native 
African see with his own eyes, and bear witness 
to, the superiority of Christian and civilized over 
brute savage life. Be the founders there of a new 
empire ; build cities on every harbor and inlet 
along the coast; and know that when you are 
achieving these things, you are doing what none 
else can do for the millions there. You are reduc- 
ing them to a state of civilized humanity ; and you 
will also be doing what I fear can never be done 



25 

by treaties, and protocols, and squadrons of armed 
cruisers — you will be putting an end forever to 
the African slave-trade." 

Such, I trust, will yet be the mission of the 
descendant of the African in this country. It has 
been begun already. The colony at Liberia, the 
nucleus of a future African empire, was prospering 
under the fostering care of the best of our great 
men, both at the north and the south, when it en- 
countered a deadly and relentless foe in those, who 
now claim to be exclusively the friends of the 
African. Their friendship has been fatal in every 
way ; and will be, till the objects of their benevo- 
lence are torn from their embrace. But though 
their perverse labors have impeded for a time, they 
have not been able to arrest, an enterprise, which 
I have ever regarded as comprising more of en- 
lightened, and comprehensive, and far-reaching 
benevolence, than any other which this age has 
brought forth. When the present agitation, so 
aimless,, and fruitless of every thing but evil, shall 
have died away, we may suppose that the desire of 
the African exile will be more distinctly and finally 
turned towards a home already prepared to receive 
him, and where he can stand erect as a man, con- 
scious of no superior by his side. When the pres- 
ent advantages, and fair promise and hope of the 

colony at Liberia shall have been spread before 
4 



26 

him ; and the dream of an equality here with the 
white man, whispered in his ear by his unreal 
friends, shall have been dissipated ; we may trust 
that he will himself feel an ardent desire to return 
to that which is properly his country and his home, 
and to share in the toil and glory of adding another 
to the civilized nations of the earth. Then will 
commence a spontaneous emigration of the race to 
the coast of Africa, such as is poured in upon us 
now from the shores of Europe. Every ship which 
parts from our shores, laden with our manufactures 
for the use of the colonists, to be exchanged for the 
rich products of the eastern tropics, will be made 
vocal, — not with the groans of miserable captives 
manacled in the filthy hold, but with the songs and 
gratulations of captives made free at last, and going 
to bestow upon their brethren the liberty where- 
with Christ has made them free. Nor will the 
fundsof the nation be withheld from the enterprise. 
Then will there be, what there has never yet been, 
an open door, and effectual, to the emancipation of 
the southern slave. The great hindrance, in the 
estimation of those who ought to know best, will 
be removed ; the dread, namely, of a constantly ac- 
cumulating population among them unfit for freedom, 
as they always must be while they continue there. 
I cannot regret the discussion which is now go- 
in°- on in these northern states. It has been forced 



27 



upon us by the recent outbreaks against law ; and 
it is time that we should all understand our duties 
as Christians, as citizens, as members of this great 
confederacy. I am glad that a crisis has been 
reached, when we must determine whether we will 
any longer invite or tolerate an agitation, so utterly 
senseless and pernicious as that which for years 
past has disturbed the peace of the Union, and now 
threatens its very existence. If we are henceforth 
to live in harmony with our brethren at the south, 
we must forego our absurd abstractions, and learn 
to deal justly, and follow after the things which 
make for peace. And never again should any fac- 
tious man amongst us be allowed, with impunity, 
to reproach them, in a style so popular with the 
vulgar, for perpetuating an institution for which, 
at present, there is no remedy ; or sting and irritate 
them with sarcasms, as mean and ungenerous as 
they are unjust. And let us learn also to put more 
faith in time and progress, to bring about results 
which appear to us desirable. 

In regard to slavery and its concomitants, one 
truth at least must by this time have become ap- 
parent to every dispassionate mind. No desirable 
change can be wrought by violence : by denuncia- 
tion; by witholding from any citizen the rights 
secured to him by law ; by any resistance, secret 
or open, to the execution of law. What must be 



28 

the effect of such resistance or evasion ? It is bad 
in every way, and to all concerned in it ; and who 
amongst us is not concerned in upholding the su- 
premacy of Law ? It is peculiarly afflictive to the 
race it professes to benefit, because their bondage 
is necessarily made more stringent and oppressive 
when it is seen that, in the event of their escape, 
there is no hope of recovery.. And then, in the 
aggrieved party, there is left rankling a sense of 
wrong's unredressed — of intolerable insult — of a 
broken covenant ; all tending to excite and foster 
a wish to separate forever from, and cease from all 
intercourse with, a people, who cannot or will not 
be held to any compact however sacred. And in 
that case we could not blame them. It would be 
the sentiment of every honorable and generous 
heart, in tendering to them the right hand of friend- 
ship and fellowship, when parting words were 
said ; — Would to God we might still dwell together 
in unity as we once did ; but it cannot be : mad- 
ness and faction are in the ascendant, and rule the 
hour : we have nothing to accuse you of; God's 
law and man's law are with you, but separate we 
must. We succumb to the master-spirits amongst 
us who have had revelations of a higher law. Go, 
and the blessing of heaven go with you. 

And then — what then ? America, lately the ad- 
miration, the pride, the hope of the great and good 



29 

in every clime, become the scoff and jeer of the 
world ; all faith in the ability of republics to fulfill 
the ends of government extinguished forever; our 
Union gone ; our strength, our peace, our glory, 
departed like a gorgeous but transient vision ; and 
henceforward our tale will be told in the wars and 
fightings which make up the burthen of vulgar 

history. 

In none of the political agitations through which 
our country has hitherto passed, have I ever feared 
for the stability of the Union ; for none of them 
sprung from interests or passions purely sectional, 
like that by which we are now convulsed. But at 
length, the very crisis which the anxious mind of 
Washington foresaw, — which he dreaded more than 
any other, and which he strove to avert by solemn 
and repeated warnings, is in imminent danger of 
being brought upon us by a few factious, aspiring 
men, who avail themselves of the honest blunders 
of weak and ill-directed consciences to compass 
their own selfish ends. Yet this dangerous point 
will be safely turned, if we will but do our duty 
with a faithful and resolute heart. The battle for 
the Union must be fought, not on the cotton fields 
of the south, but here on the soil of New England. 
The enemy in this case is the band of disunionists 
at home. Let law and order triumph here, and 
the immediate danger will have passed. Let those 



30 

who love the constitution and laws of our country 
stand by them, and plead for them, and act for 
them, and uphold them ; and it may yet be well 
with us for many years to come. 

That our confederacy can long, very long, stand 
the tug and strain to which it is likely to be sub- 
jected in the growing impatience of law, it would 
perhaps be too sanguine to expect. It may be 
wanting in some of the essential elements of dura- 
bility. But let us make it last as long as we can, 
for the incalculable good it brings ; and avert to the 
latest hour possible the great calamity. When- 
ever it comes, it will come too soon. Let us not 
hasten it by any want of faithfulness on our part to 
the conditions of the compact ; nor, by weakly 
yielding to the clamors of a few " men of perverse 
minds, and destitute of the truth," allow this fair 
heritage to be given up a prey to the unimagin- 
able miseries of disunion, anarchy and civil war, 
the end of which no human mind can foresee. 



10 



